Wednesday, January 18, 2006

"I have heard that two equally common complaints sum up the frustrations of most pastors and church board members. The first is that the church is run too much like a business. The second is that the church isn’t run enough like a business...."

"...The truth is you don’t need to visit cutting edge churches to see this debate played out. The tug-of-war between business and family metaphors plays out in countless traditional congregations. For instance, most large Presbyterian Churches I know operate in accord with highly programmatic business oriented thinking. Many other Presbyterians I meet say they would never join these large congregations because they enjoy the warm friendly family nature of their small congregation. Of course, almost every church I have seen close could have had as their epitaph “We were a warm friendly family church.” So who is right in this debate? I would say both…and neither...."

Mike Kruse raises an issue that hits close to home. There are many times when I have wanted to state forcefully "We are NOT a business; We are a community of faith!"

Mike's article goes into some detail about what "family" was in the context of the early Church, and what it is today -- and how there are key differences.

His resolution of what may be a false dichotomy between business and family has given me considerable food for thought:

"...A church is a family devoted to a business (or mission.) Lose either the family or business aspects and you have a significant distortion of Paul’s metaphor for church...."